Where the Whirlwinds Sleep
by Zeech
Summary: AUish. In the quiet of the aftermath of the Stinking Springs shootout, Billy finds reconciliation and forgivness from a slowly dying Doc Scurlock


author's note: Still getting used to this new format, bear with me. This was inspired…well…I'm not sure how this was inspired. Probably by actually finishing the movie Young Guns II and feeling very upset about it. What can I say, I'm a bawler. ^_~ Enjoy!

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**Where the Whirlwinds Sleep**

_And you said it ain't fair  
That a man walks  
When a bird can fly  
We have to kick the ground  
The stars kiss the sky  
They say that spirits live  
And man has to die_

"Good God, this man's still alive," one of the older men exclaimed when Doc had been moved to slump against the bone-hued rock pile, his head hanging lifelessly with his matted blond hair concealing his eyes. Billy was grateful for that, or so the part of him that was no more than a coward appreciated not having to look into the distant gaze of a dying friend. 

He twisted in his chains, the heavy metal clinking noisily as he thrust outward to go to Doc. Immediately he was held back by the three men assigned to restrain the Kid, but Billy just thrashed again. 

"Goddammit, I just wanna see him," he snarled, throwing his right shoulder into the arm of his captor, pouring his full weight into the hold and still getting absolutely nowhere. Frustration tightened his chest and constricted his throat. "For pity's sake, he's dying, Pat!" Billy managed, and only got a brief side-glance from the silent sheriff. Pat Garrett stood still as stone over Doc's body, hands resting on the pockets of that big black coat and his hat drawn over his eyes to block out the sun. He said nothing in reply. 

"Pat, you son of a bitch, I just want a minute –" Billy cried, desperate and angry as once again the deputy to his right only gripped his bicep harder, bruisingly. He barely felt it, barely felt anything; not the cold that stung his eyes, not the hands that bit into his flesh. Billy didn't know the man in the black coat anymore, but Garrett was the only one that heard what he said. "Just one minute, Pat," Billy swore his voice was a few notes away from pleading, but at this point he didn't care. 

The sheriff turned halfway, squinting in the painful glare of evening, and looking past Billy. He tipped his hat back a fraction of an inch, and nodded finally. The deputies' grip loosened hesitantly. "Yeah, alright," Garrett resigned, gesturing vaguely at the men surrounding Billy. "Give him a minute."

A flash of surprise blinked within Billy, but he didn't let his show. Jaw set, he shook the deputies off and set for the site where Doc rested, blowing a bit of silver blond hair from his eyes as he went, as he couldn't use his hands to brush it away. Hands or no hands, the men that had finally hunted him down trusted none of his helpless actions, and for every step to crouch beside Doc it seemed like twenty rifles cocked. Billy ignored them.

He bent to Doc's level, wonder and amazement plain on his face at the very sight of the other man still managing to breathe. It was a miracle that a man could still speak after being rittled with six bullets, with his blood staining the sun-bleached New Mexican earth. Doc smelled of blood and smoke, it was thick in the air around them as the silent half moments lingered between them. 

The clink of Billy's chains brought a flutter to Doc's eyelids, and he opened them slowly to focus on the Kid. Billy felt his stomach twist into a knot at the sight of them – dull, sunken, nearly faded all the way to an eerie shade of palest blue. The thought that once those eyes had smiled, reflected anger, kindness, passion, spirit, and now were nothing more than something that resembled confused made him ill. In a few moments Doc would pass out of this life for good, and then there would only be two Regulators left; two of six brothers, only two remaining who truly knew what it meant to have that kind of camaraderie, that kind of love.

One by one he'd witnessed every death, and seen the horror of their parting, each time swearing by the pain he bled that it would not happen again. Billy didn't have that kind of power, and his friends slipped through his fingers like a handful of sand. 

Billy offered a smile when he met Doc's eyes, a grin he'd worn a thousand and one times. "Howdy Doc," he said quietly, so only he and the other man could hear. Billy was lost for words. Deaths had been distant for him, even when Tommy had been taken. He cleared his throat to whisper, and nodded to the spreading stain of blood on Doc's shirt, though he dared not look at it. "Does, eh...does it hurt any?"

"Not so much," Doc murmured between bloodied lips, his voice so thin it could barely be called a whisper. "Not anymore. They taking you in?"

Billy half laughed, once, and let his chin drop to his chest. Time was passing too quickly, and there were a thousand things he wanted to say to Doc, a thousand things that would go unsaid. _I'm sorry,_ he thought bitterly to the other man, unable to bring himself to say it. _God almighty, I'm sorry Doc, I'm so sorry._  Instead he nodded, eyes still on the ground. 

"For now, yeah." Billy glanced up, hesitantly; hoping the sting in his eyes didn't let any tears escape just yet. Doc watched him silently from beneath sleepy lids, and Billy cleared his throat again to speak. "You just hang in there, Doc, you'll make it." He lied, but the words sounded comforting on his own ears. Pieces of hair fell limply in his gaze. 

"Shut up, Billy, you know it's not true." The orange light from the setting sun did a good job of hiding the ashen pale shade Doc's skin had become, and it lit up his eyes. Billy clenched his teeth so hard he could feel his pulse in his jaw, and stubborn tears beaded in the web of his lashes. 

"Goddammit, Doc," he whispered, finally, releasing a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. It came as a shudder. "I...shit, I don't want you gone."

"But you saw it coming," Doc said through the blood that washed up his throat from lungs that had been destroyed. His expression contorted in his enormous effort to speak, every word taking up three breaths and visibly draining him of whatever strength may have still sparked in his dying body. Billy didn't want to meet Doc's eyes, nor look down – the ruined material of his coat had been ripped into the very wounds of the bullets, and flesh and blood and cloth were welded together. It was horrible. Billy couldn't stomach it. "I just thought it might…be," Doc paused, drawing his brows tight to focus on the right words. "…Might be quicker."

So had Billy. A quick end, a flash of steel, a hasty mount and then a tearing escape as far as the Mexican border, never looking back to see what he had left behind. It would have been easier – God in heaven, so much easier than this. Only a split second of Doc taking the force of twenty armed men, and then he would never have to face the heartache of looking into those eyes again. Doc had thrown himself before the barrels of twenty rifles for Billy, so Billy might have lived, and instead the Kid had only managed to get captured. _How _could he _ever_ look into Doc's eyes _again_?

He was suddenly aware of a little pain in his knees, rocks and grit digging into the thin material of his pants. He selfishly accepted the distraction with open arms. "I know, I'm – " Billy cut himself off, and inhaled a short breath. "I, eh…I hoped it would."

"Y'know, it…it wasn't supposed to be like this," Doc rasped on, soft, as if he hadn't even heard Billy. His fingers were twitching ever so slightly against his chest, where he'd absently placed a hand as if to try and stop the bleeding. The hole in his chest, mostly concealed by his weakly covering hand, was still bleeding profusely. Dark scarlet rivets ran over his sticky fingers and made the whole picture near unrecognizable. "This was the… conclusion, but it's…" Doc wheezed and sucked in another shallow breath. "…Not over, the game, like I thought it'd be. And now I'll die."

Something gave inside Billy, and it felt as if his insides caved in like a rotting hayloft. As if his heart had fallen to the very bottom of an endless pit. Tears flooded from the very eye of his center, and he pitched forward only enough so his head hung, but his face was inches from Doc's. "Shit," Billy breathed, his voice ragged and heavy with emotion. Frustration, grief, unsettled anger that jolted his heart into furious pounding. His chest ached as a sob escaped. Doc watched him, quietly, his breath whistling softly in his scoured throat. "Doc, it – it'll never be over…never really be over. Should've ended the day we took Murphy." Billy clenched his teeth, but his lip trembled all the harder. He sniffed, hard. "But it didn't."

"You regret it…" Doc finally whispered, thinly. That brought Billy's hard gaze up, shining with tears that stung his eyes. 

"I can't," He whispered as well, harsh but desperate for Doc to understand. He stabbed his fingers of his bound hands through his bangs. "I can't regret that war I made, no matter how hard I try. There was no law; there'd have never been anything to pay those bastards back…there was no goddamned law. So I made war."

"No justice," Doc's eyes finally fell to where his hand was, and his fingers flexed weakly.

Billy laughed, through the tears and the ache in his throat. His Adams apple bobbed as he tried to evade those horrible sobs. "No. No justice. Not even now," He lowered his voice when it finally began to break again, finding his gaze on the hand resting on Doc's chest. He wanted to touch him, somehow, wanted to feel the remaining warmth in the other man's flesh before it was gone forever. But he couldn't allow himself to. 

"You shouldn't be here," he said. "I should…I deserve every one o' those slugs you took for me…" Billy screwed his eyes shut as hard as he possibly could, to the point of a hollow pain behind his eyeballs, but he didn't care. He let the comforting blackness fill all around him, trapping out the light. "I'm sorry," he choked. "God, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Doc…" He would have accepted every shot Doc took for him gladly, willingly, and being dead, at this point, would have offered a thousand times more comfort than the feel of his flesh being intact, and his body still living because his friend – his best friend – lay dying before him. He knew what he had in front of him now. A half-life. A half-life of misery, filled with crumbs of joy, if any, and sleepless nights. Repressing the brunt of his emotion broke his body down to painful spasms, brief shudders that wracked through him. His throat allowed a small voice, like a child's guilty confession. "It's my…fault…" 

"No," The slow sound of Doc's voice brought Billy out of the darkness, and he pried his eyes open, his tear strung lashes sticking together and blurring his vision. But he could see Doc, and Doc could see him. Doc's voice was still soft, but it was clear. No blood came up to drown it.

Billy hesitated, utterly confused. Was Doc finally delirious? "No…?"

"Not now," Doc murmured, and his eyes stayed on Billy's for a long moment. The glaze and faded blue had almost disappeared into that brilliant green and gold flecked light brown that were Doc's eyes, but Billy didn't let it fool him. He quietly listened. "There's no room for it, Billy. …It wasn't all…your fault." He searched Billy's face for comprehension, but the Kid only sniffed hard, his eyes still damp with tears, and his expression bewildered. 

"Doc, I don't…" He tried, ducking his head a bit to better see Doc's face. Billy could not ignore the rising feeling in the pit of his stomach – petrifying fear. Fear that this was, indeed, the end. "I don't understand what you mean."

Doc inhaled once more, deep, the air filling his lungs as best they could hold it – the sound was horrible. It scoured his throat with a sharp whistle upon the intake, but his voice was still soft. "I sold…my soul…to your cause," he breathed. "Cause it was mine, too…and I never got it back."

"Doc?"

"I'm here," he rasped, as another breath he was granted, perhaps even his last. "…Because I should be here. Because my soul is here." Billy blinked, once, to clear the coming of more hot tears. They pricked at his eyes, but he ignored them. Doc furrowed his brows in effort, and his breath slipped past his bloodied lips. "Because it belonged here."

_It belonged here._ Billy exhaled softly, and absently dragged his sleeve across his eyes. In the silence between them, Regulator to Regulator, in the last moments before the two friends would part for neither knew how long, Billy reached out and rested one of his hands on Doc's shoulder. The chains made it difficult, but he kept it there anyway, holding on to Doc as if his tightly curled fingers could keep the other man from dying. It was the only affection and comfort he could offer. Doc was still a moment – deathly still. But Doc slowly moved his head over, resting his lightly stubbled cheek against the top of Billy's hand to return the gesture with the only strength he had. 

Billy felt a pressing weight ease off of his chest, and he exhaled hard, unable to hold back a shudder, and a half sob. They stayed like that for sometime, neither moving, neither making a sound save the rhythm of their combined breathing. The world seemed to fade back into place, and the men standing a little distance from Billy shuffled uncomfortably, as if not quite sure how to react to what they had just witnessed. A hawked cried mournfully in the distance. The wind, still cold, moaned across the empty canyons. 

Billy raised his head, his eyes itchy and red from the tears, but no one spoke of them. He sniffed, and moved the hand beneath Doc's cheek, blinking hard to clear his vision and take a look at the other man's face. He nudged him again. "Doc?" Nothing. Doc was motionless, his eyes closed lightly and his lashes resting on the pale, ashen skin of his cheekbones. It was as if the last drop of his blood had finally spilled onto the dust of the New Mexican earth, and Doc had gone. 

Behind him the crunching of dust beneath boots took the ear, and Billy frowned, twisting to look up and see who it was. His insides clenched, and it reflected in the disgust on his face. 

"He's out of pain," Garrett said, but there was not an ounce of familiarity in that voice Billy had known so well. It sickened him. "Come on, Kid. Time to go." He slid a hand around Billy's elbow and helped him to his feet. Billy turned to stone at the touch, and he jerked away from it, his eyes the hue of ice and all the colder. 

"You touch me again, Pat," he said in a hard voice. "And I'll kill you."

Garrett nodded, the brim of his hat casting a dark shadow over his blue eyes. He spread his hands as if to make truce with Billy, and took a step back to allow the other deputies to seize him by the arms and herd him away from the cabin. Garrett, hands resting on his rifle, quietly took his side. They walked for only a few paces, and Billy paused, as if to say something. He turned his thoughtful expression over to Garrett, who only frowned back.

"Son of a bitch…" Billy murmured, a ghost of laughter behind his words. "I never told him."

"Never told him what, Kid?"

Billy looked from face to face in the crowd of faces that hated him as they hated the very devil. He was used to that by now, it was impossible to expect anyone to ever think anything good of him. Still, he looked them in the eye, and even made sure to give them each a smile. He cocked his head to look up over at Garrett, a mischievous smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Never told him he was a helluva sharp shooter."

Billy twisted around to give Doc one more look as the deputies they left behind began to unfold a sheet to cover his body. Interesting – at the hour of the afternoon they were approaching, Doc should have cast a long dark shadow to his right, but he gave none. No shadows would follow Doc.

_Your feet are grounded still_

_You're reaching for the sky  
You can let 'em clip your wings  
Because I believe that you can fly_


End file.
